In order to help understanding the futur possibilities of dibber, we’re writting a few fictionnal stories on how it could be used. Please, meet John!

John is a farmer and he’s been working on his small farm for almost 30 years. He never got the time to get much into the new technology such as cellphones, computers or internet. He always found inspiration for his plantings in his old books. Now, he’s close to retire but both his sons are gone and don’t wish to pursue his work. He’s trying to find a way to perpetuate what was self-taught and learned over the years of practice but does’t want his land to be bought by a large scale business farmer.

Paul, John’s son, heard about a web application that farmers could use in order to share their knowledge on farm management. One evening he introduces it to his father showing how he can find other people doing the same practices as him all around the world. Paul starts searching geographically and then with the term biointensive agriculture and just like that, they found 2 matches! Without waiting they ask to be “friend” with them.

The first one Oliver doesn’t share any information so they switch to the second one, Adelaide. She is 65 miles away and is settled on a farm of 3 acres doing, of course, biointensive agriculture. Because she has her plots marked for public viewing, John and Paul are able to have a closer look at what she does, while patiently waiting for her acceptance. Then they see that she’s not working there alone. There is a Mark helping her from time to time who has been planting potatoes with her 2 days ago. Without waiting, John asks his son to connect with him too, which he does.

Great painting by R C deWinter

Mark has been helping in different plots and gardens around Adelaide’s farm : “Here to help out in my spare time if available!” he says in his profile. “Wow, awesome!” comments John; who was never able to find anyone to help him around his place. Adelaide’s been using dibber very conscientiously because she likes to keep track of everything. This allows her to analyze why things went well and why others didn’t. She is able to easily see what she has planted over the past years so she knows what not to know grow and where. As Mark has a job, he’s not always at her farm ; dibber allows him to keep an eye on what’s going on there when he comes back home.

Eventually, John took the time to learn dibber and today, he is communicating with other farmers; sharing over 3 decades of experience. He even uses it to manage his farm… a bit ; showing his buyers what he’s doing on a day to day basis. Because John’s farm is public on dibber, everyone can see what he does when they’re not able to come to the farm. One day, Mark visited him, he told him he was going to be in the process of changing career and that being a farmer would be something he’d really like to be. Has John found his successor ?